Page 199 of Deep Cover

No one was going to do that but given where I was and who was around me, it was probably just fine to respond like that. But when I turned back to pink hair to answer her, she'd gotten tired of waiting for an answer from me and moved across the room to a corner where a woman dressed as a nun except her wimple ended over a black bikini was going through a line of people, smacking their palms with a ruler.

I felt like I'd done acid. Or like I assumed that would feel. Or fallen into a funhouse that wasn't really any fun at all.

We'd arrived two hours earlier and Vincent had paraded me around the room letting people get a good look at my back. I had been expecting to be stripped, to be fondled and groped, I'd halfway expected to be where the girl on the table was, despite Vincent saying this wasn't my night to serve, if that's what serving was, and I thought it probably was.

None of that had happened. Instead I'd been numbed by the boredom of listening to people who were probably well informed in the subjects they were talking about but who were talking about stocks and bonds, and about the art world, and about classical music.

All of which was crazy. They were carrying on as if this were a normal event.

Crazier still: Maybe for them, it was.

Nothing happened as I’d anticipated and now, after the pink-haired woman gave up on me as a conversational target, I started looking around as unobtrusively as I could to see if there was a phone in evidence.

Probably it wouldn't do me any good. The accents around me pretty much proved I was in France and if not, somewhere in the European Union. Getting through to anyone quickly via landline was laughable. If operators even existed anymore, I wouldn't speak the language and the back and forth communication would take forever. I had no money. I had no idea what time it was at "home."

There was also Vincent's unrelenting eye on me. No matter how far away he was, he watched. The skin crawling along the back of my neck suggested he wasn't the only one watching me.

Eventually I found a chair in the corner where another tired looking girl – wearing only a very fitted tuxedo jacket which covered most of her charms if she held very still – was sitting. Two seconds of attempted and unwilling conversation convinced us we had no languages in common. I thought she looked as relieved as I felt.

We sat silently and decorously and watched the crowd.

Vincent took us back to the house at one a.m. There was no sign of Kie or anyone but security when we entered. Vincent had been quiet on the way back as if he had something on his mind and when we were in the house, he took my arm and said, "Come with me," and led me into a room where a metal examination table stood.

No pause. Zero to sixty. I clawed my way free of him and started to run, getting only a couple feet before I went headfirst into a huge man's chest. He simply steadied me, but he didn't let go.

Behind me I heard Vincent swearing. "I should have thought of that. Annie, it's not what you think. For your back. I brought someone in."

I stopped struggling. It wouldn't do me any good anyway. I wasn't prepared to call him sir, so I didn't ask for reassurances. Probably they wouldn't have been forthcoming and if they were, they could be lies. I simply let the security guard scoop me up and deposit me face down on the table.

A blanket and thin pad had been laid on it, making the surface softer.

He hadn't lied. Vincent nodded to someone who came in and exchanged a few words with him and then came to me and asked if he could touch me.

That surprised me so much I gave blanket permission.

"Are you worried about the dress?" he asked in perfect, accented English.

If Vincent wasn't, why should I be? He hadn't said anything about changing. "No. Thanks."

He didn't bother to respond. He simply started working on my back, gentle fingers spreading some kind of medicated cream, smoothing it into the welts. That hurt, but his gentleness and maybe more importantly, the fact that he wasn't Vincent, made me want that pain for the first time since I'd been taken. There was, of course, none of that. He cleaned, medicated and dressed the welts and never touched me in any way that wasn't directly involved with taking care of me. I sighed and almost fell asleep but the gentle touch was too good to waste. What was it about me that Mark's gentle touches made me mad with foreboding that I couldn't spend my life with nothing more intense, but the painful treatment of masochists sent me running back for soft?

But there were worse thoughts waiting for me when I was escorted – not harshly, for a change; not dragged but guided – to my suite of rooms.

Lying on my stomach in a wash of moonlight, the evening drifted back. The stone cold preparation Vincent had indulged in the night before. The dress, made to exactly frame my back and his inflicted marks. The medical team, though truly only one man, there to meet us when we returned. My back felt almost normal now. My pulse no longer pounded in each of the welts. I thought I could sleep.

Except. The evening. The beating. The dress. The people at the party, talking about world religions and artwork, about politics and finance, while a girl stood naked and displayed on the table and I wore a dress that exhibited my beating as if it were art.

They were insane. Maybe not all the people at the dinner but definitely those within this house. Vincent Geddes was insane. That was something of a surprise.

That Kie was insane wasn't even the slightest bit of a surprise.

Their insanity could easily turn deadly. Their insanity may have already turned deadly for all I knew, I thought with a sudden sickening clarity.

The crazier they were the slimmer my chances of walking out of this house alive.

I lay in the moonlight for hours, chasing ideas through my mind and when I slept, I still didn't have a plan.

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